Lisa Newlove, 28, from Skelton, and Susan Taylor, 48, from Brotton, were back seat passengers when he lost control, overturning the car and sending it into a nearby field.

The friends were travelling back to Teesside from the Creamfields music festival in Liverpool when the crash happened at about 9.25am on August 28 last year.

Prosecutor Peter Makepeace told Teesside Crown Court that Cole originally faced charges of causing death by careless driving while unfit through drink or drugs, but accepted the guilty pleas to death by dangerous driving charge.

Cole is on bail until he learns his fate later this month .

Judge Peter Armstrong said: "The inevitability is that there will be a custodial sentence and therefore the pre-sentence report will be aimed at assisting with the appropriate length of that sentence."

The judge expressed his sympathy for the families of the women, who sat silently in the public gallery. Family members and loved ones declined to comment after the hearing.

Senior investigating officer, Sergeant Pete Wood, from North Yorkshire Police, said outside court: "All the members of the families, six months after the event, are still very, very badly affected and are still finding it very difficult to come to terms with the loss of two loved ones.

"At the moment, it's a bit of limbo the families are feeling while the judicial process is ongoing.

"They are just waiting to see the end of it to close that chapter of their grief.

"What they want to see is an acknowledgement through the judicial system of the seriousness and the effect it's had on the families, in relation to Andrew Cole's sentence."

Lisa Newlove and Susan Taylor were pronounced dead at the scene.

The car crashed about half a mile from the Silton crossroads near Northallerton. The A19 was closed for more than six hours.

Cole was taken to James Cook University Hospital by air ambulance, while a third female passenger was taken to the Friarage Hospital, Northallerton.